Magic and Filianism.

From Here

One may look at the Filianic faith and assume that the similarity to Christianity extends so far as to include a prohibition upon the study of the occult. While I am still somewhat new to Filianism, I spent a good deal of time studying on this matter over the last year. My research has turned up nothing to indicate that such practices are forbidden. Indeed, I am moved to suspect that these practices, when undertaken responsibly, are encouraged.

The transmission of the Holy Scriptures is said to have come from an ecstatic trance. I am inclined to believe that Dea provides us the ability to engage in magical study as a way we might come to learn more about the Real aspects of the world. The Holy Scriptures speak of the world as being illusory. Our efforts to comprehend the illusion are going to be fraught with frustration if we persist in focusing only upon what our five senses tell us.

Spells are no different from prayers. They are perhaps worded differently but they are still appeals to the Divine to bend the circumstances we find ourselves in to a shape more pleasing to us. Some would think that the audacity of humanity to ask such thing is madness. Yet, we ask such things daily.

The person who prays that their beloved family member be cured of cancer is asking just such a question. Their prayer is no different at its root then the person who is casting a spell for the cancer stricken person to be cured. The methods by which the request is made are different but the request is the same. Spells are simply prayers put to ritual actions.

One may ask what about divination. I would conclude that divination is favorable in the eyes of Dea as well. We are encouraged to look to the Janyati for aid in all things. Rare is the person to whom an angel would address directly. Divination, while at time a difficult tool, provides a flexible framework where we might discern their answers and aid. It allows us not only to become aware of the 'voice' of the spiritual world around us but for us to engage in deeper introspection.

When we turn look at the Temple of the Heart, verse one, we find:

Know your own heart and make examination thereof; for if you know not your own heart, there can be no true knowledge of anything.

Divination is a means by which we may come to know that which we would hide within our hearts and mind. Most people assume that divination is mere fortune telling. The term has its roots in the Latin term for soothsaying. Sooth is an ancient word for truth. Divination is a means of determining the truth of something. It may show us a pattern or perhaps the dancers who make up that pattern. That knowledge, when turned inward, reveals to us the depths of our hearts.

There is no explicit prohibition against the practice of magic or divination. Indeed, there seems to be implicit encouragement to engage in these practices. As such, it is my fervent belief that we are to use divination and magic as tools in our efforts to know ourselves and draw closer to Dea.